Angel Avalon wishes you a Happy Valentine’s Day!

Avy LOVES to help me in the kitchen.  Surprisingly, one of her favorite things to do is help me crack eggs.  We make eggs for breakfast every few days and it is her “job” to help me crack them.  In fact, if she hears me even say the word “egg” she starts to bang her fist onto her leg and gets all excited.  She does the same thing when Reed brings in the eggs we collect from our chickens.  She can’t get enough of cracking eggs.

At first it was really messy.  (Even worse than this video shows.)  But, now after a month or so she does very well.  I do have to pick out egg shells, but even those are getting fewer.  I love my little helper.  Not bad for a small child under the age of 2.

I made this little movie so that you could see her in action.  It is a bit long (4 min.) so you may or may not want to watch the whole thing.  Her little smile at the end is cute, though.  Grandma and Grandpa will want to see it all!  (Oh, and it does look like it takes a minute to load….)

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Do you remember THIS????

And THIS?

And THIS??

Well, we now have THIS!!

This is the FIRST EGG we collected from our baby chickens.  They are no longer chicks, but full fledged chickens!  And, some of them are laying eggs.   Right now we are collecting about 2 to 3 eggs per day from them.  Plus, our older chickens are laying about the same.  So, we are almost self-sustainable on eggs now.  Isn’t that fabulous?   We are thrilled!

Scrambled eggs, anyone?  Yummy!

This post is NOT for the weak of stomach.  So, if that is you, kindly refrain from reading.  But, farm life is interesting and full of adventure.  I have to share!

We have wonderful friend and farming mentor named Sherrie.  She has horses and offered to help us bring a load of manure for our garden.  We jumped at the chance.  Here are John, Calvin and Sherrie flinging horse dung onto our garden area.  Thanks, Sherrie!

This is another common site around the farm.  We have mice.  I have talked to several folks in the area and it is a bad year for mice.  They are everywhere!  We find them dead just laying on the snow.  And, they come in the house.  GROSS!!  So, we have lots of mouse traps set up around our house and the boys check them frequently.

After we had caught so many we started keeping a tally.  Do you want to know the total we have caught so far….IN OUR HOUSE???

33

Are you grossed out yet?  I know I am!

Here is one John caught under a bale of straw he was unloading.  He (She??) was a big one!  And ALIVE!

Aunt Elizabeth made Avalon a beautiful tutu and magic wand for Christmas.  Here is a picture of her wearing it.  We were all standing around watching her angelic happy expression.  The Fruit Loop necklace was made by Ivan.

Aurora captured an adorable picture of her wearing it at home.  She is such an angel!

Before Christmas we had the opportunity to go skating twice in one week.  At the same place!  First, John has his company work Christmas party.  Then, we had a home schooling Christmas party.  Both were a lot of fun.

For the company party, John’s bosses gave out a ton of tokens, so Calvin and Ivan spent most of the time playing arcade games instead of skating.  But, they had a blast!

Calvin with one of his “winnings”.

Reed had fun scooting around.

John took Avy for a stroll.

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We invited Mary and her girls to come with us to the home schooling party.

Avy and Emily had fun pushing each other around the rink.

Natalie did great with the scooting.

Both were a lot of fun and we hope to go again soon.

I am trying to instill in my children a love of service.  Helping others is really what life is all about, right?  And, it feels so good.  At least, to me, it does.  My children are not quite so sure yet.  I think, though, as we go along my children will look forward to opportunities to help others.

Here are a few things we have been up to lately…..

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Early in November, some home schooling friends and their families met up at Maple Dell and we did a service project.  We sanded the benches in the scout camp’s chapel.  It was a lot of fun.

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Calvin and I took one evening and went to the LDS Home Storage Center.  We canned some food for ourselves and for a sister in our ward.  Calvin had a blast!

Here is a picture of Brenna who is expecting her second child next month.

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I don’t have any pictures, but we also spent an hour at the LDS Bishop’s storehouse.  We bagged oranges and grapefruit into 5lb. bags.  We got to go into the warehouse and see where they store all the food.  The boys weren’t so sure they wanted to be there, and Avy had a fit in the baby backpack, but I figure it will take time for them to get used to the idea.  I had a wonderful time.

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We attempted to make some soft pretzels for some of our neighbors for Christmas.  The recipe wasn’t that great, so we didn’t give very many away.  We did something else instead.  But, it was fun to make these for others, even if they didn’t receive them.

This is the one Reed (5 years) made of Baby Jesus.  He did it all on his own.   Wow!  Doesn’t it look great?  We did give this one to our neighbor, Sister Nelson.  She is the only one who got one, though.

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We also had the opportunity to “help others” by watching our neighbor’s children while they packed up their house to move.  Lulu, Bubba, and their new baby sister were a delight to watch.  We will miss them!

Avalon loved holding the baby and feeding the baby.  She can’t get enough!

She also enjoyed being the “baby” and getting into the baby’s car-seat.  Too funny!

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We did a little cousin gift exchange for Christmas and the boys made some beaded necklaces for their girl cousins.  They turned out very cute!

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Well, that is all I have for now.  If you need service rendered or can think of good ideas for children’s service activities, please let me know!  Helping Others is fun!  Right?…..Boys?…… Right!

Here is a picture of the doll I made for Avalon for Christmas.

Isn’t she sweet?  I got the idea from a friend who makes dolls and sells them on Etsy.  (The pattern is actually on the Martha Stewart website.  Secelie makes the cutest dolls!

I think my doll turned out very nicely and Avy sleeps with her every night and calls her “baby” and loves her to pieces.  She kisses her, and wants a blanket around her, and feeds her, and nurses her, and puts shoes on her, and pushes her around in her new stroller.  She’s a perfect little mother to her “baby”.

I couldn’t find any normal felt for her hair, so I actually knitted some brown wool and felted it and then used it in the pattern.  And, since I had so much fun making this doll, I decided to make some more dolls for my nieces.  I raided Grandma’s felt stash and made some really cute dolls for my nieces.

There were eight dolls, total.  I had some more pics of them, but Ivan deleted them from his camera.  The nerve!!  Just kidding.

The girls just loved their new dolls and here is Rachel holding the one she chose.  I didn’t get very many good pics of them enjoying their dolls, but they seemed happy.

Now, lest my other nieces feel left out, I do plan on making some more dolls for my AZ, GA, and TX nieces.  Give me some time to acquire some more good felt and I’ll get to sewing again.

I just love making things by hand.  So fun.

Remember Kelsey?  Well, she was blessed in November.  It was a quiet, beautiful service.  Here is Avy admiring the “bebe” afterward, but she didn’t want to smile for the camera.

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Here are the kids having fun with Papa!

I have no idea what Reed was doing here, but I thought it was a cute photo.  He is a fun, happy kid!

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Grandma Pratt came over one day a few months ago and brought the boys these spinning top things.  They were somewhat complicated to figure out how to operate.  We looked to the packaging for help in knowing what to do….

Say what???

Can we say “MADE IN CHINA”???  (The boys did figure it out and enjoyed the tops for about 1.1 day until they broke.)

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Here is Avy at the Cablelas hunting/outdoor fun store.  She loved all the fishes.

Another cute pic of Avy.

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This is how Calvin can be found just about every waking hour.

This post is for people out here in Utah.  Is this your butterfly?  It is very cute, but it isn’t ours.  John found it in his coat pocket a couple of weeks ago.  He has no idea how it got there.  All the boys seemed clueless at all.  Like no recognition, what-so-ever.  They thought it was very cool and want to keep it.  But, I’m sure it belongs to someone.  Now, HOW did it get into his pocket?  And, WHY don’t the boys know anything about it?  Was it in his pocket for a whole year (like a coat he didn’t use very often)?  I’m not sure.  Is John sleep-walking and secretly putting other people’s stuff in his pockets?  Hmmmmm…..

Well, the butterfly has been found.  If it is yours, let me know and we’ll give it back.  (If I can remember where I put it….)